Tissue engineering is expected as a treatment which is sure to effect a cure for diseases having no treatment methods conventionally in which the functions of organs and the like are recovered using biological samples such as regenerated tissue and the like manufactured using cells as raw materials. Regenerated tissue is manufactured by manufacture practitioners specialized in cell culture techniques at a CPC (Cell Processing Center) providing a clean manufacture environment in accordance with the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). Thus, enormous personnel costs, man-power, and operation costs occur. Moreover, since all the manufacturing processes are performed by hands, a limit is imposed on the amount of manufacture of regenerated tissue. On this account, manufacturing costs are increased, and hamper the spread of tissue engineering and treatment as a consequence.
In order to move beyond the status quo, it is desired to introduce an automatic culture device that automates a part or all of cultivation processes. This makes possible to perform the cultivation processes using an automatic culture device without hands and to realize labor saving, cost reduction, and mass production. In addition, it is also expected to provide the contribution to the constant quality of regenerated tissue because the manipulations of the automatic culture device are constant.
Here, the automatic culture device is a replacement of manual operations, and it is necessary to comply with the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) for manual operations. Moreover, the GMP specialized for automatic culture devices is not presently defined. However, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry presents the guidelines on the development of automatic culture devices for clinical applications (the fields of tissue engineering (the guidelines on the design of human cell culture system, revision (2009)), and it is also necessary to comply with the guidelines. From the description above, in consideration of the GMP for manual operations and the guidelines on the development of automatic culture devices, the automatic culture device is demanded that the automatic culture device be enabled to manufacture regenerated tissue of high quality in an excellent reproducibility in the state in which a clean environment is maintained based on scientific grounds.
For a scheme to solve the problems, Patent Literature 1, for example, discloses a device in which the lengths of passage tubes from a solenoid valve are aligned in units of columns for a plurality of culture vessels disposed in a matrix Configuration, cells are cultured using a plurality of the culture vessels in the same column matrix, and the quality of regenerated tissue is made equal.
Moreover, Patent Literature 2 discloses a device in which in order to decrease biological contamination risks, components including culture vessels, culture medium bottles, and the like necessary for cultivation are in connection all the time using passage tubes and the like and a closed-system cultivation space is formed.